Alcyonacea - soft corals. The waters of the Red Sea are attractive to a large extent because of the huge number of soft corals that cover vast areas of reef and competing with other corals. Representatives of various kinds are so diverse that it is difficult to believe in their relationship: some like thin pencils of different-colored "flowers", others - on the rubber animal figures shih-tunneling-gray color. The polyps have eight tentacles (oktocorals), feed on plankton, which are brought over, and if necessary, may be drawn into the living mass component of the main body of the colony and containing little calcium spicules.

Photographers are very fond of different kinds of family Dendronephtya. They have branched out a transparent structure, which are clearly visible calcium spicules. Their colors vary from pink to dark red, from yellow to blue, from orange to purple. Similar in form, but opaque Lithophyton arboreum, yellowish-white, often serves as a refuge for small fish. Sarcophyton trocheliophorum like a greenish-gray sponge, but when the polyps crawl out and spread their tentacles, it becomes white.